


A Partridge in a Pear Tree

by spilled_notes



Category: Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Christmas, Divination, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 19:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13014978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilled_notes/pseuds/spilled_notes
Summary: Bernie had always known that she would divine her soulmate's face: where she comes from it's part of life, whether she wants it or not. What she hadn't expected was for it to take three and a half decades - to take a failed marriage, a revelation about her sexuality and being blown up - to find said soulmate. Or that it wouldn't all be plain sailing when she did find them.





	A Partridge in a Pear Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Day One in the Twelve Days of Christmas Ficfest.

_Said the night wind to the little lamb,_

_Do you see what I see?_

_Way up in the sky, little lamb,_

_Do you see what I see?_

Ever since she was a little girl, Bernie had always known that one day she would divine her soulmate’s face. Every girl in her family does, every girl in her village and in the villages dotted along the valley: some relic of a seer in their common ancestry or an overabundance of magic in the soil, or perhaps just a tradition that has long since died out everywhere else but stubbornly lingers here.

When she’s five she’s bridesmaid at her aunt’s wedding, to a man whose face she saw in a pail of water at Midsummer when she was sixteen. Bernie doesn’t remember much about that day, just the uncomfortable frilly peach dress and lots of family members she didn’t know telling her that she looked like a princess, that one day it would be her getting her fairytale wedding to her fairytale prince. She suspects she pulled disgusted faces at the lot of them before running off to play with her cousins, suspects she was told off for tearing her dress or muddying her shoes.

When she’s eight she listens to her older cousins gushing about the faces they saw, Natalie in a mirror at midnight on Halloween after eating an apple, Jenny in a dream on St Agnes’ Eve with a sprig of rosemary under her pillow. Two years later she’s a bridesmaid again, this time dressed in lilac: Natalie started working for the local council when she left school, on her third day rounded a corner and almost walked into the man whose face she’d seen, the man she’d been waiting to find, the man she knew she would fall in love with and marry.

Bernie’s sister is three years older than her, turns sixteen when Bernie is five months shy of her fourteenth birthday. All of Bernie’s friends seem to have become interested in the opposite sex overnight and Bernie feels left out during their conversations, wonders why she still couldn’t care less about the boys at school beyond being friends with them.

Leonora doesn’t talk to her so much these days – not about important things, anyway – but at gone midnight on St Mark’s Eve she tiptoes into Bernie’s room and slips into bed beside her.

‘He’s got the most beautiful blue eyes,’ she whispers dreamily, and then sighs. ‘He doesn’t look at all like the boys I usually fancy but he’s mine, and I know I’ll love him.’

Bernie smiles in the darkness, reaches for her sister’s hand and squeezes.

Maybe that’s all she needs, she thinks. Just to see his face. Maybe she just hasn’t found anyone she likes yet, and seeing his face will change everything.

*

Bernie is fifteen, and wakes up already dreading her next birthday. She knows what she wants to do with her life now, is taking extra advanced biology and chemistry with Miss Brookes and reading all the medical and anatomical books she can get her hands on. She has a plan – medical school, trauma surgery, the RAMC. Miss Brookes thinks she can do it, tells her she’s bright and tenacious, and Bernie feels all warm inside. What isn’t in her plan is a husband, kids.

Her friends are all turning fifteen too. Those from elsewhere – from other villages, from town – just carry on, and Bernie surrounds herself with them. Those from her village and along the valley all start to think ahead to this time next year and can’t stop talking about it; Bernie spends as little time as she can with them, pushes it from her mind and buries herself in the next chapter, the next book, the next assignment for Miss Brookes.

*

Bernie is sixteen, and spends as long as she can putting off finding out who she’s going to marry. Her plans haven’t changed, but neither has the existence of her soulmate; she knows he’s out there but if she could remain blissfully ignorant she can pretend that everything will be just how she wants it for a little longer. Just a little longer.

Come Halloween she’s never been so happy to be ill, is almost thankful for the appendicitis that keeps her in hospital through the prime nights of the year for divination. Her luck doesn’t hold forever, though; there’s no way she can put it off forever.

She’s torn from sleep just before midnight on Christmas Eve by her sister, back home for the holiday with her fiancé – he of the bright blue eyes – in tow; she doesn’t understand Bernie’s reluctance and excitedly drags her past the dark Christmas tree and out into the cold, down the hill to the nearest orchard, the nearest pear tree. They aren’t the only ones there – Bernie isn’t the only girl to have turned sixteen, and Leonora isn’t the only spectator – and Bernie has to wait her turn. She’s perfectly happy to let the rest, excitable and giggly the lot of them, go first, weighs up her chances of slipping away unseen in the dark but knows it’s futile.

So she dances backwards around the tree three times and then, swaying, gazes up into the branches. She’s so dizzy she stumbles, only catches a glimpse of dark hair and dark, sparkling eyes before she trips on a root and falls over. The face vanishes before she gets chance to see it properly.

You only get one shot at seeing your soulmate’s face. That’s it, that’s all she’s going to get until she actually meets him. Sat in the dark, the cold seeping through her clothes and a bruise forming on her hip, Bernie feels like crying. In seconds she’s gone from not caring to desperately wanting to know what he looks like. But she swallows down the tears, stands up and brushes herself off. What does it matter anyway? She’ll meet him – she’s _destined_ to meet him – and until then she’ll just follow the path she’s laid down for herself. It’s not like she would have done any differently anyway.

*

Marcus has dark hair and dark eyes. He’s her best friend, he makes her feel special, cherished, but there’s no spark when they touch, no fire between them.

 _Is that all?_ Bernie wonders. _Surely there should be more than this? Surely it should feel profound, like something slotting perfectly into place?_

But he’s a good man and he loves her. She must be broken if this isn’t enough for her. Maybe she ruined it all by tripping, by not seeing his face properly all those years ago. Maybe she broke their connection somehow. Maybe it’s all her fault.

Marcus doesn’t like her being in the army but he lets her go because it’s what she wants and he loves her. Bernie knows she’s running but goes anyway, carries on with her life as close to her plan as she can. It doesn’t hurt like it should. Her sister speaks about the invisible tether binding her and her husband, about how she feels it tugging at her heart every time one of them goes away. Bernie is thousands of miles from Marcus and she misses him, of course she does. But her heart feels just like it always has.

 _Maybe it isn’t him,_ she thinks, lying awake in her bunk. But she quickly shoves it away – because does it really matter? She married him, she loves him, they have a family together. Him not being her soulmate doesn’t change any of that, doesn’t change the commitment she made, doesn’t change that she loves her children.

Her dreams start to be haunted by the face she almost saw, by dark hair and dark eyes filled with love and want. They look less and less like Marcus’ eyes each night.

The next time she’s back on leave and he comes to the airport to meet her and their eyes meet she knows, feels it in her heart and her bones and her soul.

It isn’t him.

*

Bernie had never considered that maybe her soulmate could be a woman. But then she meets Alex and feels a spark, more than she ever remembers feeling with Marcus. Alex kisses her in a supply closet, and her lips are soft and her body fits against Bernie’s, and Bernie is terrified and overwhelmed and can only cling to Alex’s scrubs as her world shifts on its axis.

She feels something fall into place. _Maybe it should feel like this,_ she thinks, her fingers twined in Alex’s hair and Alex’s fingers buried inside her. In the dark desert nights she allows herself to forget that Alex’s eyes are blue, allows herself to forget the eyes of her soulmate as she finds herself in Alex’s touch, Alex’s kiss, Alex’s love.

It isn’t enough, of course. But she’s had a taste of what could be, and it isn’t fair to Marcus to keep him bound to her when she knows there’s more out there for her – and for him. So the next time she’s on leave she asks him for a divorce. The failure of her marriage hurts but she knows it’s the right thing to do – maybe the only thing she’s done right in their entire relationship.

When Bernie returns to the desert Alex greets her with a smile. She feels the pull of attraction between them, but when they snatch some time together and Alex kisses her suddenly all Bernie can see is the vivid blue of her eyes. She draws away, pleading tiredness from the flight back, retreats to her bunk and stares into the darkness. When she finally falls asleep she dreams of pear trees and starry skies and sparkling eyes, reaches out a pleading hand but still sees nothing more.

*

Four months later, Bernie is blown up. When she screws her eyes shut against the pain she brings her soulmate’s eyes to mind and focuses on them as hard as she can all the way from Afghanistan to England. As she’s wheeled into Holby City Hospital she hears a snatch of _The First Nowell_ and realises that it’s Christmas Eve. She wonders where her soulmate is and who she (because she’s almost certain, now, that it _is_ a woman) is celebrating with.

*          *          *

By eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve, Serena is regretting offering to cover the night shift: AAU is full to the brim with the usual festive collection of drunks and bar fights and domestic disagreements, along with an assortment of unlucky patients who are sober enough to be dismayed at the prospect of spending Christmas in hospital. But just as she’s mindlessly reaching for another Quality Street from the tin on the nurses’ station she’s called up to Darwin, scrubs in to theatre alongside Guy and Oliver to help repair a pseudoaneurysm that’s apparently far worse than it appeared on the scans. Oliver already has the chest open so she takes a look, concurs with his assessment (and privately congratulates him on having the courage to admit he needed help with Guy Self staring balefully at him, no doubt snarking all the while) and gets straight to work.

‘Your best work please, Serena,’ Guy says from his seat at the patient’s head, holding her neck steady while she and Ollie have their hands inside her chest.

‘I do my best work on every patient, Guy,’ Serena says as sweetly as she can. ‘Just as you do – you know that. Who’s this, that she warrants a special warning?’

‘Major Berenice Wolfe.’

‘The trauma surgeon?’ Serena asks, glancing at him.

‘The very same.’

Serena raises her eyebrows then returns her attention to the damaged artery. The pseudoaneurysm is close to rupturing and she’s glad she was here; it’s fiddly and tricky, delicate work, and she can’t help but think that in the hands of a lesser surgeon Major Wolfe might well have been in trouble.

She’s just finished, is just about to leave them to it when the Major’s heart goes into VF. So she stays, watches as Ollie shocks her twice with the paddles to no avail. And then, without thinking, she bats his hand aside and reaches in to fit her own around the spasming muscle to massage it. When it stops fluttering and regains its rhythm, Serena could swear it’s beating at the same speed as her own heart.

Serena lingers a little longer, until Ollie has finished and Guy has restarted, then goes back down to AAU. She spends the remainder of her shift hoping that the rest of Major Wolfe’s operation went smoothly, wondering how she’s doing.

*

Bernie is lightly dozing when there’s a gentle knock on the door, a warning before someone pushes it open.

‘Merry Christmas, Major,’ says a rich, if tired, voice.

‘Bernie’s fine,’ she replies automatically, hoarsely.

Bernie thinks she must still be under the influence of the anaesthetic because when she opens her eyes and looks at the woman she feels funny, for an instant sees her face overlaid with a network of branches, a starry sky behind her where there should just be ceiling tiles – but when she blinks it’s gone, and all she can see is a pretty woman with the make up slightly smudged around her tired eyes and a fur hat on her head.

‘I’m sorry, have we met?’ she asks, because she can’t shake the feeling that she knows this woman, that they have a bone deep connection. Surely the IED wouldn’t have addled her mind enough for her to have forgotten someone she can sense is important to her?

‘Technically, yes, but you were under anaesthetic at the time,’ the woman smiles, holding out her hand. ‘Serena Campbell.’

‘Ah, which part of the repair job do I have you to thank for?’ Bernie quips. She takes the offered hand, feels something rush through her when their skin touches.

‘A pseudoaneurysm that was worse than Mr Valentine expected. And coaxing your heart back into working order.’

‘Well then I really do owe you thanks,’ Bernie says, squeezing Serena’s hand and smiling.

‘Maybe you can buy me a drink when you get out of here,’ Serena suggests with a wink.

‘I could buy you one while I’m in here, it just won’t be very exciting.’ They stare at each other, and then Bernie realises she’s still holding Serena’s hand and lets go, a faint blush spreading across her pale cheeks. ‘Sorry, you must have somewhere you need to be,’ she murmurs.

‘Hm?’

‘It is Christmas, after all. And you’ve had a long night.’

‘Right. Yes, yes of course,’ Serena says, clearing her throat. ‘I’ll let you rest.’

*

Serena arrives home to a house full of Fletchlings – she’s almost bowled over by Evie the moment she’s through the door – and a kitchen full of chaos.

‘Don’t worry, we’re following your instructions to the letter,’ Fletch reassures her, wiping his hands on his apron, when she grimaces at the sight. ‘Long night?’

‘Oh yes,’ Serena replies, yawning.

‘Here,’ Raf smiles, pulling out a chair for her and placing a mug of tea and two croissants on the table in front of her.

‘You’re a star, Raf,’ she smiles.

‘You’re the star, letting us descend on you like this,’ he corrects her. ‘Now, eat up and then go and have a nap. No, I insist,’ he says, holding up his hand when she opens her mouth to protest. ‘A couple of hours, at least.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t let him muck dinner up,’ Fletch winks. ‘He’s relegated to sous chef only.’

Later, Serena wakes to the smell of turkey and stuffing wafting upstairs from the kitchen, smiles as she stretches out the kinks in her neck and thanks her past self for deciding to invite Raf and Fletch over.

 _If only Ellie was here too, instead of off skiing with her boyfriend,_ she thinks sadly, and then shakes her head to dismiss the thought.

The thought of Bernie, lying in her bed on Darwin, turns out to be not quite so easy to dismiss. The antics of the Fletchlings distract her through dinner, but her mind keeps returning to the woman and she can’t quite work out why: she’s hardly the only patient stuck in the hospital over Christmas, after all, and Serena isn’t even her doctor, doesn’t know her, hardly spoke to her really – not like Mr Jenkins, or Mrs Harris, or young Lucas Mills. Why should Serena be thinking about Bernie Wolfe, who should have been spending Christmas Day working in an operating theatre in the desert, rather than a nine year old boy who should have been spending it at home with his family?

But she’s still thinking about her when Fletch and Raf pick up the sleeping Ella and Theo and carry them out to the car; Serena ruffles Mikey’s hair and hugs Evie, and stands in the doorway waving until they’re out of sight. She closes the door, shivering a little, and walks back into a house that suddenly seems even emptier than it usually does.

Twenty minutes later she’s in her car on the way to the hospital, leftovers and a tin of Fox’s biscuits miraculously undiscovered by the kids on the passenger seat.

*

Bernie is dreaming. Of her soulmate, of course: of that cold, clear, crisp Christmas Eve in the orchard back home, the dizziness of apprehension and dancing backwards, the face she almost saw in the branches of the pear tree, the sparkling eyes she knows better than her own.

And then the door to her room opens and she jerks awake to the sound of Serena Campbell’s voice, even richer than she remembers it.

‘I hope you’re hungry,’ she announces, holding up a cool bag in one hand and a tin of biscuits in the other. ‘No wine, I’m afraid, but I have all the rest of the trimmings for a picnic Christmas dinner.’

Serena sets down the food and removes her coat and hat, steps closer to the bed and smiles at Bernie. Bernie can only stare up at her, her eyes wide and her mouth dropping open as her heart pounds – because she’s woken to find herself gazing into the very eyes she was dreaming of, the eyes that have haunted her for thirty-five years. And suddenly it all drops into place: why she felt she knew Serena the moment she saw her, why she felt something the first time they touched, why it was Serena’s hands that managed to bring her back to life on the operating table. What everyone else meant when they told her how it felt to find their soulmate, what was missing with Marcus.

But the light in Serena’s eyes dims a little and she draws away, her hand rising to toy with the pendant resting in the hollow between her collarbones.

‘Oh god, I’m sorry,’ Serena says, blushing. ‘Just waltzing in here like this. You– well, you don’t even know me, and you’re probably expecting visitors or want to be alone or– I’ll, um, I’ll just–’

‘Stay,’ Bernie says quietly, reaching for Serena’s hand before she can move away any further. ‘Please? I mean, if you don’t have anywhere else you need to be?’

‘Are you sure?’ Serena asks, frowning. ‘I wouldn’t want to intrude, or impose.’

‘I’m sure,’ Bernie smiles. ‘How could I refuse dinner with a beautiful woman?’

Serena blushes again, absentmindedly rubs her thumb across Bernie’s but stops abruptly when she realises what she’s doing. ‘Just don’t tell the rest of the patients, or they’ll be jealous.’

‘Not likely. I’m not sharing with them,’ Bernie chuckles.

So Serena pulls up a chair and unpacks the food and Bernie tries desperately not to stare at her, tries to keep the wonder from her face even as it rushes through her veins. Her heart aches with it, and at last she understands.

 _You!_ she wants to cry, sneaking glances at Serena’s face from behind her fringe, eyes tracing her features. _It’s you._

*

Eventually Serena sees Bernie drooping, packs up the leftover leftovers and reluctantly pulls on her coat.

‘That drink,’ Bernie says, her voice rough with tiredness, reaching for Serena’s hand.

Serena instantly steps closer, moving to meet her half way, fingers sliding against Bernie’s in a gentle caress. ‘Yes?’

‘Could I buy you dinner as well?’

‘To thank me?’ Serena asks. ‘Or for another reason?’

‘Put it this way: I won’t be asking Guy Self or Oliver Valentine out for dinner any time soon,’ Bernie smiles, her eyes narrowing.

‘I think I’d really like that,’ Serena replies, unable to stop herself from beaming. ‘Just let me know when you’re up to it.’

‘You’ll– will you come and see me again, before that?’ Bernie asks hesitantly.

‘Jac Naylor couldn’t keep me away,’ Serena smiles, leans closer and, after a moment’s consideration, brushes a kiss to Bernie’s cheek.

*          *          *

Three months later Bernie is sitting on a hard bed in hospital accommodation in Kyiv, her face in her hands and tears streaming from her eyes.

 _How could I have been so stupid, so selfish?_ she thinks. _I’m not just me any more, I have to think about her too._

Because she ran, didn’t she – just like she always does.

Nothing anyone ever told her prepared her for what falling for Serena would feel like. No doubt if she were twenty – twenty and not jaded by life and a failed marriage and the conviction she had broken the thread connecting her to her soulmate, not with scars both literal and figurative criss-crossing her heart – it would be wonderful and perfect and all the things she’d been told to expect. But Bernie isn’t twenty, and she _is_ jaded and scarred. And Serena is too much for her.

She survives working on Keller – lives for the times their paths cross, yes, but always feels somewhat relieved to return the few floors back upstairs, to give herself time to recover before they next see each other, because she honestly doesn’t know if she could cope with feeling like she does around Serena all the time.

Keller doesn’t last long; it’s clear within a few weeks that Bernie doesn’t belong there, equally clear where she does belong. And when she moves down to AAU permanently she finds that she _can_ survive – for a while, at least. She survives sharing a ward and an office and a theatre, survives seeing those eyes across from her every single day as well as in her dreams almost every night. Survives drinks and dinners and flirting, hugs and the brush of lips on cheeks, the tentative dating they’re both careful not to rush because they’ve known each other for hardly any time, really, even if Bernie knows they’re destined for each other.

Bernie survives – thrives, even, basking in the joy and rightness of life with Serena by her side.

Until Serena kisses her – kisses her properly, like her life depends on it, like she never wants to stop.

It’s like a floodgate has been opened, and Bernie feels everything all at once. She thought the world had bloomed into colour when Alex kissed her, but that was nothing in comparison. And she doesn’t know how to live like this, doesn’t know how to exist when her heart feels constantly tachycardic and her eyes keep straying to Serena, who seems to be glowing – not just with happiness and love but actually giving off a light only Bernie can see, and it’s blinding her until she can’t think.

She runs to Kyiv without thinking at all, grasps the opportunity Hanssen offers with both hands and runs. But she’d forgotten that her heart is tethered to Serena’s now, and being that far away from her hurts – hurts like being away from Marcus never did. She feels it all the time, like her heart is being yanked from her chest and trying to squeeze between her ribs, the only respite when she finally falls into a restless, exhausted sleep filled with dreams of Serena’s eyes.

Worse, she’d forgotten that it would hurt Serena too – forgets until the sixth email and the third text and the first voicemail, until she hears the trembling in Serena’s voice, the anguish she’s trying to hide.

Bernie lets her phone slip from her grasp and fall to the floor, sobs and sobs until her throat and her ribs are sore from it. And then she wipes her eyes and blows her nose, picks up her phone again and searches for flights. Her finger hovers over Serena’s name on the screen but she doesn’t know what to say to her, doesn’t know what will happen when she hears Serena’s voice. Instead she texts her, a simple message accompanying a photo of her plane ticket: ‘I’m coming home’.

*

Bernie hadn’t expected Serena to be waiting for her in arrivals. Her head down, her eyes bleary with the weariness of travel on top of sleepless nights and the ceaseless ache in her heart, she doesn’t even see her, would have walked straight past her were it not for the way that pain – her constant companion from the moment the plane to Kyiv took off – suddenly vanishes.

Bernie stops in her tracks, raises her gaze from the floor and slowly looks around. When their eyes meet the airport vanishes for a second, replaced by an orchard under a starry sky. Bernie blinks and it’s gone but Serena is still there, a tremulous, hopeful smile on her face, her hand fluttering around the base of her neck, fingers tugging her pendant back and forth along its chain.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bernie says when she manages to move again, reaching for Serena’s hand.

‘Why?’ Serena asks softly.

‘I got scared – by how much I felt for you – how much I _feel_ for you. I’ve never felt anything like it before, and I didn’t know how to cope. And when that happens I run.’

‘Would it have killed you to talk to me?’ Serena asks, her thumb sweeping back and forth across Bernie’s knuckles.

Bernie smiles, a wry little twist of her mouth, and shakes her head. ‘I still don’t know how to cope,’ she confesses, barely above a whisper. ‘But you’re all I’ve been able to think about, Serena. And it hurt so much.’

‘I know. Believe me, I know.’

Serena reaches for Bernie’s other hand and clasps them both tightly. Bernie takes a deep, shuddering breath, feels the jittering panic subside under Serena’s steady gaze.

‘I don’t want either of us to ever feel like that again,’ she says, her voice breaking slightly, tears pricking at her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have run.’

‘No,’ Serena agrees. ‘But you’re back now.’

Bernie nods and gazes sorrowfully at Serena, opens her mouth to apologise again (and again. She could spend the rest of her life apologising and it still wouldn’t be enough to atone for this), but before she can speak Serena’s lips are on hers, just as tender and soft as Bernie remembers.

‘I’m not letting you off,’ Serena tells her when they draw apart, their foreheads resting together. ‘But I don’t really want you to spend the rest of the evening apologising when there are far more pleasant things we could be doing.’

Bernie feels a rush of desire at the rich, suggestive tone of her voice – and a rush of relief that Serena doesn’t hate her, will forgive her – takes a steadying breath and slowly laces her fingers through Serena’s. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘I thought dinner – we can go out somewhere, or get a takeaway. And then I thought you could– I mean, I’ve missed you and I thought maybe you’d like to come over and, well– but we don’t have to, that is–’ Serena stutters and then trails off, drawing away and looking at Bernie nervously.

‘Yes,’ Bernie says instantly.

‘To which part?’

‘All of it. I– I’ve fallen in love with you, Serena Campbell,’ Bernie says, letting go of one of Serena’s hands so she can gently wipe away the tears springing from her eyes and cup her cheek. ‘I know we can’t just pick up where we left off, I know I need to prove to you that I mean it, but I don’t want to be away from you again just yet.’

Serena smiles through her tears, covers Bernie’s hand with hers. ‘I know I shouldn’t let you back in so easily, but this is the first time since you left that I’ve stopped hurting. Actually physically hurting, Bernie.’

Bernie wraps her arms around Serena and draws her closer, until her face is nestled in the crook of Bernie’s neck and Bernie can press a kiss to her hair. She swears she can feel Serena’s heart beating even through the layers of clothes, swears it’s matching the rhythm of her own.

‘We should go,’ Bernie says eventually. ‘Or the parking charge is going to bankrupt you.’

Serena laughs a little wetly, pulls away enough to swipe at her cheeks. And then, instead of starting to walk towards the exit, she leans in and softly kisses Bernie. ‘Welcome home, major,’ she murmurs, smiling.

 _Home,_ Bernie thinks, as Serena takes her hand and leads the way. Holby never really felt like home before, but now? _Home is wherever you are._

*

Later that night Bernie sees stars around Serena’s face again. This time, though, they have nothing to do with the memory of the orchard and everything to do with the feel of Serena’s skin against hers, Serena’s lips on hers, Serena’s fingers curling and coaxing inside her, a mirror to her own.

*          *          *

Christmas morning, a year to the day since they met, and Bernie wakes to find herself gazing into the same dark eyes she saw in the branches of the pear tree when she was sixteen. They’re sparkling just like they did then – but now they don’t vanish in a heartbeat.

Later the house will be full of their children but for now everything is peaceful, just the two of them cocooned together in their bed and, soft with sleep, Bernie feels less guarded and more open. Or maybe that’s just the effect Serena has on her.

‘I’ve dreamed about you almost my entire life,’ Bernie murmurs, reaching to gently touch Serena’s face, fingertips tracing her cheekbones, the apples of her cheeks as she smiles, the sweep of her jawbone to the cleft in her chin and back again to cup her cheek.

‘Who’d’ve thought you’d be such an incurable romantic?’ Serena teases fondly.

Bernie smiles, doesn’t tell Serena that she isn’t exaggerating, that she really means it. She knows Serena wouldn’t believe her – hell, she wouldn’t believe herself had she not grown up where she did. She knows it sounds ridiculous to outsiders, especially those with scientific minds: divination and soulmates.

‘A year since you brought me back to life,’ she says instead.

Serena shifts and rests her palm over Bernie’s heart, her thumb brushing the scar bisecting her chest. She feels the steady, reassuring rhythm, remembers hearing it falter in theatre and coaxing it back, remembers being determined not to lose her, somehow knowing she could save her. Remembers it matching the rhythm of her own heart.

 _Maybe there is something in it,_ Serena muses. _In Bernie’s conviction that we’ve always been connected._ Because isn’t that what she felt really, then and later when Bernie was in Kyiv: that their lives and their hearts – their souls, even – were bound?

‘I knew I could save you,’ she murmurs. ‘Not that I was capable, that I had the necessary surgical skills. It felt different to that. Like it had to be me – not because I was the best in the room but– oh, I don’t know, it sounds silly,’ she trails off, blushing and looking away.

‘It doesn’t,’ Bernie whispers, lightly running her fingertips along Serena’s jaw to her chin, coaxing her gaze back up. ‘I’m glad it was you on duty that night.’

‘So am I,’ Serena smiles, covering Bernie’s hand with her own, leaning closer so first their noses and then their lips touch.

*

Later, sleepy and stuffed, they curl on the sofa together, _Doctor Who_ on the TV and their children around them, out of consideration for Jason all quiet bar the rustling of chocolate wrappers and the crackling of the fire.

Bernie looks away from the advancing daleks and gazes at Serena. Behind her is the Christmas tree, its branches twined with multicoloured lights, and _oh_ , it could be the pear tree and those could be the stars, and she could be seeing Serena’s face for the very first time, falling in love with her for the very first time. Her heart swells almost painfully, and she squeezes Serena’s fingers beneath their shared blanket. Serena looks up at her, one eyebrow raised in question, and Bernie just smiles, dips her head to brush a soft kiss to Serena’s lips and feels the same warmth and belonging and _rightness_ as she always does.

‘I love you,’ she mouths, her lips half an inch from Serena’s, breathing the same air as her. It’s far from the first time she’s said it. She says it every day, actually; words have never been her strong suit but with Serena she doesn’t seem to be able to stop her affection, her adoration, her _love_ from slipping out time and again, every time as sincere and heartfelt as the last. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to stop, if being with Serena will ever stop feeling so special and sparkling and incredible, if she’ll ever stop falling in love with Serena.

‘I love you too,’ Serena whispers, chasing her lips to kiss her again. ‘So much, Bernie.’

Serena settles back against her and Bernie smiles and sighs contentedly, draws her even closer and nuzzles into her hair so she can breathe her in.

 _No_ , Bernie decides. _No, I don’t think it will._


End file.
